Video: Judge Lippman brings the pain

With evident distress, state Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman delivered a video address to employees of the state judiciary. The message wasn’t pretty: prepare for layoffs and cutbacks that “will do great harm across the board” to the court system’s mission.

Lippman began the nine-minute talk by laying out the history of how the cuts came to be. In December, the system submitted a preliminary budget that, while it included a small drop in net spending, kept court costs basically flat. In early March, the judiciary responded to a public scolding by Gov. Andrew Cuomo by cutting $100 million from the budget — “the maximum that the judiciary could absorb without threatening our ability to meet our responsibilities as an independent branch of government,” Lippman said.

But the final budget deal reached by Cuomo and the Legislature — without the courts having “a seat at the table” — included an additional $70 million in cuts, toting up to $170 million or more than 6 percent of the judiciary’s original spending plan. Lippman described that as far deeper than any cut sustained by the system in recent times. (It is, however, less than the 10 percent tap sustained by other agencies under Cuomo’s control.)

Lippman didn’t offer much in the way of specifics about how the cuts would be accomplished. He said Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau and others were currently laying out a plan , and had “not yet determined the number of court system layoffs.”

Those outside the system would feel the reductions in other ways, he said. “The consequences will be felt heavily on the public as well as on every other part of our state that depends on and is affected by the courts,” Lippman said.